Shadows of Your Past
by CrimsonSuspense
Summary: A weapon appears in the heartbreak, and the Bohos have  to guard it. Tension and hilarity ensues, but things quickly go very wrong. How do you fix something you don't fully understand? And how do you fix a person you never understood at all? Chapter 3 up!
1. Chapter 1

_AN: Well, hello again. I haven't really been around for a while, let alone with a multi-chapter thing, so trying to keep this regularly updated might not be altogether sucessful. Still, here goes..._

A man sat at the control panel. Actually, it might have been more suitably named as a control _room_, since the panels spanned the walls, and a small part of the ceiling. It was covered with buttons, switches, and boards of every imaginable colour and size, but only very few had writing. The mainframe was in a very small room, which had (possibly in compensation for the size) an enormous window. This window was used to see into the enormous room below, which contained a huge metal machine. The man tapped the 'enter' button twice, his face a mask of concentration. A sickly metallic voice filled the dimly lit chamber.

"System activated. Phase one commencing." A series of bleeps followed. The man at the control desk listened carefully, his face a mask of concentration. Having checked the preliminary safety precautions, he nodded to the yes-thing at his side, without taking his eyes away from the window. The yes-thing left, and appeared through the door to the larger room, approaching the metal device. The man pressed several buttons, and nodded to the yes-thing, who stepped through a small door in the side of the machine. The man flicked the switch in the center of the desk, and slipped on a pair of black sunglasses, as a flash of brilliant white light filled the room, and a yell of pain reverberated around the chamber. Out of the other side of the machine stepped a young child, wearing the same clothing the yes-thing had been wearing. Commander Khashoggi gave a small smirk, and spoke into his pager.

"Ma'am."

"Commander, this better be good. I'm in the middle of-"

"Experiment successful."

Many years had passed. It would not have been unfair to say that since the last scene, Khashoggi's life had gone downhill faster than you could say, "another one bites the dust". He had been fired, though it soon became common gossip amongst the Globalsoft employees that he'd been sympathetic towards the bohemians. It wasn't true, of course, but that fact, when added to the fact that the Globalsoft cooperation used security quite religiously enough to need a head of it, made getting a job that required the skills he had very difficult. Of course, he had to eat. And food required money, which in turn required a job. And so Andrei Khashoggi put on his sunglasses, took a deep breath, and knocked three times on the door of the new Heartbreak Hotel.

A girl around a foot shorter than him opened the door, irritably pushing her hair out of her eyes. Short, wavy, _purple_ hair. Inwardly he cursed, but regarded her carefully, his face expressionless. She looked him up and down, and her sharp features rearranged themselves into recognition.

"Fancy seeing you here, pig."

He decided mockery would be impudent, and settled for sarcasm.

"Does everyone get this charming welcome, or should I feel honoured?"

She scowled, and was about to make a snappy reply when the Dreamer appeared in the doorway behind her. Galileo, as his Bad Arsed Babe had done, looked Khashoggi up and down, and tilted his head thoughtfully.

"You need somewhere to stay." It was a statement, not a question. Carefully avoiding Scaramouche's ferocious glare, Khashoggi nodded. Galileo gave him a quick grin. "Well, it's not charity…"

"Thank god for _that._"

"But yeah, you can have a room here if you want. We're still connected to the old tube network-"

"According to that old git." Scaramouche muttered, from behind the Dreamer.

" – She means Pop." Galileo interjected unnecessarily, and continued as if the interruption had gone unnoticed. "So, we're still connected to the tube network, so we have way more space then just the house – most of the old bohos are still here – Macca and Mads and Lotte and that, and we can cook in the house, and we've got the recording studios in the house too, cause we can get electricity way more easily as well…" Scaramouche gave him a diplomatic nudge in the ribs, and he broke off, giving a bashful smile. "I'm rambling, sorry." Khashoggi looked amused. "And, um, the others might take a bit of… getting used to you, but I'll ask then to go easy on you," he rubbed the back of his head with his hand, possibly seeing the irony of telling the man who had arrested the people he was about to move in with to "go easy" on him. Khashoggi, ignoring the remark, and Scaramouche's snort of amusement that followed it, inclined his head, inwardly mildly shocked at the boy's generosity, and hugely thankful for it.

To give the Dreamer credit, it had been much less painful than he had expected – although Scaramouche provided the occasional snarky remark (often accompanied by a dig in the ribs with a sharp elbow) when she thought he was getting too complacent.

Once he had been in residence for several weeks, however, he was beginning to get used to it, and consequently became slightly more comfortable in his surroundings. The changes were subtle; but noticeable to those who were sober enough. The kitchen began to look cleaner, the dishes were done with rather more regularity, and meetings began to start within ten minutes of the time they'd arranged. His room was beginning to feel more like home, although he still missed the luxury of fresh coffee in the mornings – and a dishwasher. Manual dish-washing still felt like something of a novelty to him. Apart from that, he felt he was adjusting well to his new predicament.

He didn't see a large number of Bohemians on a day-to-day basis, as he spent most of his time between meals working (thankfully, Scaramouche wasn't usually as irritable as she had been at his arrival – at the office, they even managed some humour.)

There was one bohemian he'd been dreading seeing, but he supposed that she must spend most of her time in the tunnels. He had, after all, only seen her for brief flashes of time, as she collected her meals and did as many of the others did, taking her food back to her room.

Unfortunately, not much longer after his second month at the Heartbreak, he did see her, under entirely unexpected and unforeseen circumstances.

And afterwards, they wondered if they'd ever have got to know one another any other way.


	2. Chapter 2

_I'm hoping to get roughly a chapter done per week- but that might be slightly impeded by exams till the 22__nd__, so we'll see how that works out. Plus, the chapters might not be really long, but again, this might change in a couple of weeks or so. Still, thank you for reading (and please review! It's really nice to hear what people think of it – concrit is totally appreciated.) :)_

* * *

><p>"- and that's how it works!" Pop looked up excitedly, and frowned when the rest of the bohemians seemed completely uninterested in this revelation. "Hey, were any of you lot listening?"<br>Meat glanced up from a tattered magazine. "Yeah, for some of it. You kind of lost me after the first ten minutes, though." Pop scowled.

"Well, fine. You can just break it when it's your turn to guard it, and then you can tell Khashoggi he's got to fix it." A general murmur of disquiet emanated from the crowd of bohemians, as Meat muttered "Git," to Madonna, who grinned.

A distraction came from the corner of the dimly lit office, in the form of a movement from a tangle of limbs that made itself known as Galileo and Scaramouche. With a wriggle, the purple haired girl disentangled herself from the Dreamer, and wandered lazily across the room to check something on one of the many screens. Over her shoulder, she called, "Or, you could just tell 'em why we've got it."  
>Galileo looked around, with a confused expression. "I don't get it."<br>"There's a surprise." Scara shot him a grin, then turned away from the computer to face the ageing bohemian. "Pop, do you even understand it?"  
>Pop gaped indignantly. "Course I do! I understand - y'know, in the technical term of things... that we ... it needs..."<br>"In other words, no, then."  
>"Pretty much."<br>Scaramouche sighed, and turned to the bohemians. "Basically, Evil Bitch Queen makes a weapon - we're not really sure what for - and then she gets destroyed. Unfortunately for her, in case she wants to come back and get it, we stole it. And now we've gotta protect it, make sure no stupid Gaga things try and steal it back. Capiche?"  
>There was silence, and Scara sighed. "Understand?" The noise turned to agreement, and Pop grinned. "Couldn't have put it better myself. So, who wants to do which shift?"<p>

* * *

><p>Over the next few weeks, the Bohemians faithfully guarded the mysterious machine, despite the fact that none of them had managed to remember exactly how it worked. However, the "Secret Weapon of Doom and Destruction", as Prince had enthusiastically dubbed it during its first week in residence at the Heartbreak, failed to make itself known as anything other than a large, if shiny, piece of junk.<p>

However, the day soon came upon which it would prove itself to be otherwise.

This day dawned in early spring, to a somewhat muggy sky, and the miserable likelihood of rain. Khashoggi, prone to arriving in the earlier hours of the morning, entered the office with a large pot of coffee and a short temper. Setting the former carefully on his desk, and pushing the latter to the back of his mind as best he could, he had only just sat down, when his communicator gave a staccato beat, and he carefully withdrew it from his pocket, and answered it. "Hello?"

It was Scaramouche. "Feel like microwaved shit. Gazz says s'a cold. Do I need to be in today?"

"Are you going to behave like a reasonable adult?"

There was a short pause, while there was the sound of sneezing from the other end of the line. Khashoggi, tidying papers on his desk, waited patiently for her answer.

"No."

He gave a short laugh. "Have a day off, then. Feel better."

"Cheers. S'later, then."

Khashoggi, slightly amused by the younger girl's plaintive request, was smiling as he opened his laptop and brought up the schedule of the weapon's guards. The smile didn't reside for long.

Glancing down the list, his eyes met the one name – and bohemian – he'd yet to encounter in his time at the Headquarters. Admittedly, it wasn't exactly difficult to avoid someone if you were determined enough in the conditions they inhabited; the vast numbers of tunnels and corridors meant that you were unlikely to pass many people at any given time, as long as you used the less popular routes – and the two of them certainly were determined.

Still, there are times at which one must do things they'd rather not, if it means creating or protecting something bigger than the sum of its parts, and Khashoggi told himself that this was just one of those times. Trying not to contemplate the unease that the day would inevitably bring, Khashoggi added a measure of whisky to the coffee, and resigned himself to his work.

Around an hour into the sorting of programmes – an endlessly tedious job, and one which seemed to serve not great enough a purpose to cause so much tedium – Khashoggi allowed himself a short break, with vague intentions of getting some food. On opening the door, he found a small group of girls, apparently having some disagreement, who broke apart almost guiltily upon seeing him. He offered them a quick smile, and made to walk past them, until he saw the girl at the centre of the group. Looking up at him, her features set immediately into a scowl. Her eyes, huge and green and lined defensively with thick black kohl, held an aching sadness, and he found he could not look into them. Instead, he regarded her feet.

"So – I'm meant to be here today." Her voice was cold, and Khashoggi, wincing, reassessed his idea of how the day would turn out. Giving her a curt nod, he indicated the door to the room she would be guarding. Waving to the gang of girls, Meat Loaf stalked past him without so much as looking in his direction. He sighed. Oh, what a joy the day would be.

"So why exactly d'you need help with this?" Khashoggi looked up from the screen he'd been scrutinising, with a frown. It was the first thing she'd said that morning.

"I beg your pardon?"

She indicated the door behind her with an expansive gesture. "That thing. Why do you need someone to help you guard it? I mean, s'not like you aren't incapable of _taking people out anyway_, is it?"

Oh, god. Ignoring the jibe, he focused on the first question, without taking his eyes from the screen. "It's in case someone were to try and break in. Yes, if there were just one person breaking in, I'd – deal with it. But if there were more than one, then I'd probably require help. Having someone else here eliminates a substantial amount of danger."

She raised an eyebrow. "How?"

Finally turning from the screen, he regarded her thoughtfully. "Do you really care, or is this just for the sake of talking?" Meat shrugged, and focused her gaze on the floor again, arms wrapped loosely over her waist.

Fine, he could do talking. Talking was okay. All he had to do was to carefully avoid talking about – _it_ – and they would stumble, however awkwardly, through the next 5 hours.

"If I'm down here alone, fighting off, say – 4 intruders – and I have to stop and call for help, I won't be concentrating on protecting myself, or the weapon. So the intruders are more likely to get past me, and to get into the Heartbreak through the tunnels, giving you a greater risk of danger. So with someone else here, everyone has a batter chance of survival. Well, of staying relatively unharmed. I guess being underground for so long doesn't do wonders for your health, if the state of some of you is anything to go by." He didn't keep her gaze for long, and by the end of his explanation, his attention had once more been caught completely by the screen in front of him, and so he didn't see her head snap up at this.

"How dare you."

"How dare I what, exactly?" He glanced up at her, his expression dark.

Her gasp of outrage was genuine, as she gripped the edges of her seat and glared coldly at him.

"How dare you, come in here, and start bitching about the place! You're our enemy, I don't give a shit what they say about you being all reformed or whatever. You came in here with all your bastard policemen, and put half of us in prison, and then tortured half of the lot you jailed. Then your fucking Killer Bitch gets rid of you, and we get rid of her, and so you come running to us for help? You don't deserve _shit _, and I don't even know why they let you in, just because _he_ might have done – and then you have the _nerve_ to come in here and to make out like, even after everything you've been given, we're just not fucking _good_ enough for you!" Her voice, starting low and angry, had risen to a shout, and by the time she'd finished her rant, she leant back against the door, breathless.

He was silent for several seconds, and then rose to his feet. "I'll be back in a minute."

Commander Khashoggi was not, to any intents and purposes, a sociable person. However, living with the bohemians had given him the impression that a great proportion of people's morning anger was related to a lack of caffeine. Therefore, he reasoned, a reasonable gesture of kindness would be to take a coffee to Meat Loaf, with an apology. Leaving the outraged girl to herself for a minute, he left the room.

In the small adjoining kitchen, he sighed as he waited for the kettle to boil. Knowing the girl very little, he had no idea what to say in order to diffuse the unavoidable tension. Working alone for so long had its benefits, it was true, but then this only made coming into the normal, non-cyber world only that little more difficult – aided, obviously, by the fact that he was living amongst his former enemies. He supposed that interaction was something he'd definitely have to work on. He was still considering this when he heard a high pitched scream from the other room, followed by a sharp 'crack', and a bright flash of light.

With a hissed expletive, he ran from the room, all thoughts of reconciliatory coffee forgotten. Entering the room, he saw the door to the weapon room slightly ajar, and walked slowly towards it, with a terrifying idea as to what he might find inside it. Slowly, he pushed the door open. Only to find – nothing, but the machine, and no sign whatsoever of the previously fuming blonde.

"Shit." He looked around him, growing steadily more worried about what he might discover. As his line of sight reached the door, his mouth dropped open. Standing in the doorway, wearing clothes that looked utterly unsuitable for her, was a child. A blonde, freckled, child.

A child with huge, terrified, bright green eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

"_No… NO!" __A scrabbling of heavy boots against dry ground._

"_C'mon, Meat, we don't have time for this. Just grab the bloody stuff, we need to get put of here before the pigs turn up." _

_A shriek, and the sound of sirens. _

_Footsteps._

_Silence._

Out of the many things Khashoggi could deal with, shock was most definitely not one of them. As his previous _position _had required him to come across situations which would have repelled the average GaGa, he had needed to steel himself against many feelings. Someone in a profession which contained (but wasn't limited to) cruelty, violence, and some occasional torture (both mental and physical) needed to be carefully managed, to make sure that they could stay relatively sane.

Accordingly, Khashoggi had spent a long time honing his ability to remain composed in strange and unpleasant circumstances. However, these skills seemed not to work in particular situations. It seemed that one of these was the event of a small child appearing in his office. And this meant that he had absolutely no idea what to do about it. A desperate glance around the office brought no inspiration, and so he looked properly at the child for the first time.

He stared at the young girl, almost unable to comprehend the fact that she was stood right in front of him. Only the strange snuffling noises she was making were making him certain that she truly was there, and wasn't just a hallucination brought on by the weirdness of living with the people he used to despise. After several seconds of incomprehensible staring, it occurred to him to check what the snuffling noises actually were.

Unsure as to how to go about figuring this out, he awkwardly knelt down, to be at eye level with the small child, who regarded him with huge, uncertain eyes. Khashoggi, for the first time in his life, was in a situation in which he was completely at a loss for what to do. Having never been in close contact with a child, he did what seemed reasonable to him, and patted her slightly awkwardly on the top of her head.

"Hello." He managed.

The child blinked.

"What's your name?"

Blink.

He frowned. "Do you know where you are?" The child frowned back at him, her bottom lip trembling slightly. Then she snuffled again, and a tear trickled miserably down her cheek. If Khashoggi had been apprehensive before, it was nothing to how he felt now.

Many attempts at conversation with the child had proven fruitless. She had answered a few of his questions, which initially seemed a hopeful start, but he quickly became exasperated. She couldn't tell him where exactly she was from, ("Ma house,") how old she was, ("M'small.") or when her birthday was ("Presents?"). At a guess, he would have said she was three – although this was of next to no help, since this gave him no clue as to how he was to resolve the problem, or what one actually did to care for a three year old in the meantime.

For God's sake, what was he meant to do?

Khashoggi, at an utter loss for the first time in his life, sat in his chair, and buried his head in his hands. Surely, the best thing to do would be to just calmly work through his day to day tasks, until his head had cleared somewhat.

He sat back in his chair, and let his eyes glaze over slightly. There was, for the foreseeable future, a small girl in his office. A girl he did not know how to change back to her future self. A child he might have to take on the responsibility of. He glanced through his hands, and swore.

A child who was, at that precise moment, stabbing away at a hundred-year-old laptop. With quicker reflexes than he knew he had, Khashoggi swiftly moved across the room, and snatched the laptop from her grasp, giving her a frown for good measure.

He eyes widened, and her hands stretched out for it. He winced, as he recognised the earlier signs… and sure enough, she started to wail. Looking around for something – _anything_ – to pacify the howling child, his eyes paused on Scaramouche's desk.

What happened next caused him to realise just how much his brain was actually trying to cope with at the time – too much.

Scaramouche was off ill, and at home. She was also (although a mature one for her age), a teenager. Therefore, she was probably asleep. The general code of conduct when preparing to wake Scaramouche in a normal state of affairs was to perform the action with care, almost silence, and the promise of hot coffee, and expensive chocolates.

If she was ill, then the action should be completely abandoned, for fear of possible violence, should her glare fail her.

And all of this reasoning paled in insignificance when the fact existed that he had, somehow, produced an unexplained toddler.

Within seconds, a plan had been formulated. The girl – well, Meat, he realised he might as well admit it had to be her – was sitting contentedly on the floor, drawing ( and emitting the occasional pointed sniffle, which he was trying to ignore) with a pack of highlighter pens and a stack of printer paper, while he sat watching her. Holding a phone tightly to his ear, he prayed desperately for his collague to be in a vaguely hospitable mood. Since this was about as likely as divine intervention, he prayed for both.

Blessedly, she answered after several rings.

"_What._"

"I need your help." Bluntness was the only way, he had decided. "Seriously. Please come down."

"You taking the piss? I've got flu."

"So bring some Lemsip." There was a 'humph', and a slight rustle. Her voice came back, clearer than before.

"Bollocks, I hardly ever take time off, and now I'm genuinely ill, and you're making me come in?"

He pressed a hand to his forehead, and sighed. "I'll give you the next week off. Just, _please_, come in."

There was a pause. "This isn't for work, is it?"

He looked at the child, and drew his hand across his eyes. "Not exactly. Look, I'll tell you everything when you come in."

"Be there in half an hour, stick the bloody kettle on."

Thank _God. _He let his head fall forward onto the desk.

The sound of the door slamming brought him out of his reverie, and he looked up to see an (angry) Scaramouche in front of him. One hand was on her hip, and the other clutched a mug of coffee he vaguely remembered leaving next to the door.

"This better be bloody good." She said, shortly. In answer, he opened one eye, and nodded towards the child, who was sat on the floor behind her. His eyes were closed again before the coffee hit the floor.

The minute or two it took them to clean the floor and pick up the shards of porcelain painstakingly avoided the obvious. When they both stood, the child had slumped down on the floor, and appeared to be asleep.

Scaramouche and opened her mouth. He expected incredulity, or (more likely) a furious rant about what, exactly, he had managed to do to Meat Loaf. Her next words were neither.

"… Well, someone's been busy."


End file.
